


We Will Always Meet Again

by underthesunandbeneaththestars



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, Little bit of Fluff, The whole gang is here, daytrip is referenced, mainly bellarke, mostly just going for that happy ending, no i will not be taking this back, they got screwed over and now you all have to hear about it from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29325594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underthesunandbeneaththestars/pseuds/underthesunandbeneaththestars
Summary: The story of the head and the heart retold to have a happy ending. A One-Shot.--Essentially, this is my roundabout way of saying I hated The 100 finale and here's how it should have gone. :)
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Clarke Griffin, Bellamy Blake & Octavia Blake, Bellamy Blake & Octavia Blake & Monty Green & Jasper Jordan & Raven Reyes, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Monty Green & Jasper Jordan, Octavia Blake & Monty Green & Clarke Griffin & Jasper Jordan & Raven Reyes
Kudos: 15





	We Will Always Meet Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gravybucks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravybucks/gifts), [pensoverviolins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensoverviolins/gifts).



Clarke

The light of the new day’s sun flashed in her eyes as Clarke looked to her friends—her family. They’d chosen to stay with her; they’d refused to transcend. Clarke was astonished that, when given the choice of leaving behind everything they’ve done and everything they’ve lost, they chose her. She knew that she’d been undeserving of transcending and she understood that. But she could never understand how she was deserving of the people standing before her.  
As day turned to night, Clarke listened to Levitt’s stories from Bardo, Octavia’s stories from her time with Diyoza—much to Hope’s chagrin whenever an embarrassing story surfaced. Jackson, Miller, Gaia, and Indra recounted what they missed from Earth while Murphy spoke of Emori and how much he wished she were still here. Raven stepped in to share her favorite memory of those they’d lost before the group took turns doing the same.  
“I honestly don’t know,” Clarke spoke after taking a deep breath. Shaking her head and looking away from the group, she continued, “We’ve lost so many that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”  
“Well,” Octavia readjusted herself as she leaned against Levitt, “start with names.”  
“Come on, O, if we start naming names, we’ll never stop.” Raven’s attempt to make a joke of it all fell flat amidst the weight of it all. She wasn’t wrong.  
Sighing, Murphy met Clarke’s eyes for the first time that night. “Who do you miss, Clarke?”  
Taking a moment, Clarke debated not even answering. Raven was right; there were too many names. She started at the beginning because what else was there to do? “My mom. My dad.” She took a shallow breath, names tumbling out of her mouth faster than she could organize them in her mind. “Jasper. Monty. Harper.” Clarke shot a sad smile in Jordan’s direction as she spoke his parents’ names. “And then there’s Emori. Maddie—but it’s easier to know that she’s not in pain anymore, I think.” Clearing her throat, Clarke felt tears sting in her eyes, and then - “Bellamy.” She heaved another breath, glancing down before her eyes found the sky. “I think that, out of everyone, I really wish Bellamy was here.”  
Clarke’s elbows found her knees as her head fell into her hands. “I killed him. I killed all of them.”  
“No.”  
Tears streamed down Clarke’s face before she could even look up to see who’d spoken.  
“No,” Murphy repeated. “We’ve been over this a million times, but you don’t seem to get it, Clarke: we’ve all lost people and we’ve all made choices. All of us have lived to regret the things we’ve done. You are a product of the things that you were forced to do when you had no other choice.”  
“Murph—” Raven tried to cut in. Her expression read ‘give her a break’. Murphy wasn’t having it.  
“No, Raven. Why should we do this? Clarke, you know it’s better knowing that Maddie isn’t in pain anymore—but what about the rest of them? It has to be the same, doesn’t it? Those people that we’ve loved and lost and lost because we loved, they have to be somewhere where they can’t feel pain and wh-where…” His sentence trailed off after his voice broke. He dragged a hand through his hair, giving himself time to think. “They have to be somewhere we can meet again; where their fight is truly over.”  
Silence rocked the people sitting around the fire. All tears had stopped in the stead of Murphy’s words. No one dared to move or to speak. Even as Octavia stood and took two steps forward, a cup held above her head, “To all the people we’ve lost,” we looked around into each face she saw, “Yu gonplei ste odon. May we meet again.”  
Standing slowly before nodding to Octavia, Echo followed the same motion with her own cup. “Yu gonplei ste odon. May we meet again.”  
Everyone followed suit and, within five minutes, they were all standing. The look each held in their eyes was one of grief. It was one that Clarke had grown accustom to before she’d hit the age of eighteen and one that she hoped to never feel again. The fact that there was even hope that Clarke would never feel that again was something that she couldn’t fathom. She’d spent too long hiding and surviving that she forgot what it was like to be seen and to live.  
But all of that was over.  
Even as she went to sleep that night—under the stars beside her friends who no longer faced danger at every turn—, she was content in knowing that she could finally live. If not anything else, Clarke could at least be grateful for that.  
“I used to draw the stars, you know,” Clarke whispered to Raven and Murphy. They’d made their way over to her once the couples split up to find more private areas to spend the night. “When we were on the Ark, it was all I’d ever draw.”  
“Why?” Murphy asked with his tone that he always did. “We were surrounded by the stars. Aren’t artists supposed to draw things they can’t have?”  
“Nice, Murph,” Raven chuckled. “Very deep.”  
“Oh shut up.”  
Raven shook her head. “You were saying Clarke?”  
“Would it be fair to say I felt trapped? We were kind of locked up.”  
“I guess so.” Murphy cocked an eyebrow in thought at Clarke’s words. “Yeah.”  
“And it would always look something like this.” Clarke pointed to the sky. “A sky full of stars over…everything and everyone.”  
“That’s us then, isn’t it,” Raven interjected into Clarke’s train of thought. “We’re everyone.”  
“It’s kind of nice to be the rest of humanity, to be honest.”  
Sitting up to look over Clarke, Rave glared at Murphy.  
“What? It is.” Raven sighed before falling back to the ground, allowing Murphy to continue. “No more bad guys. No more saving the world. No more wondering what monster’s next.”  
“The cockroach finally outlived everything,” Raven whispered.  
“And the mechanic finally fixed everything,” he fired back.  
“And both of you need to get some sleep.” Clarke was tired. Not of the bickering, just of everything else. It had been one hell of a day, in her honest opinion.  
“Sorry,” Raven mumbled as Murphy spit out a comical, “She started it.”  
Rolling her eyes before chuckling slightly, Clarke smile in spite of everything. “Good night, guys.”  
Clarke managed to fall into a deep sleep before hearing their responses. She’d never been more tired in her life, so that was no surprise.

-/-

What was a surprise, however, was that her eyes opened so quickly afterwards. The mere fact that they opened wasn’t the surprising part, though. That award went to her surroundings.  
Waking with a start, Clarke observed where she was.  
It was most definitely the Ark.  
Her cell, to be exact. Wall to wall with its drawing and artwork that she’d drawn a lifetime ago, Clarke felt at peace as she looked at them, unaware of why she’d been so riled up.  
Standing on legs that wobbled only for a moment, Clarke shook off the feeling of déjà vu she had.  
Well that was one hell of a dream, she told herself as she looked at her father’s watch. Watching as it ticked, she could just barely make out the date that was displayed in the middle. It was the thirteen of September.  
Feeling herself already starting to forget the things she’d seen as she slept, she almost began wondering why she’d have such a vivid dream. ‘Stress can induce bizarre dreams,’ she recalled a line from one of her many sets of notes. She hadn’t seen them in a while, but that particular phrase had stuck with her, as it was from one of the last tests she was meant to take. She never got the chance to, but that was beside the point.  
Clarke knew exactly why she was stressed—she’d heard guards passing by talking about something going down today. She had no idea what exactly, but it had been stressing her out for several days and, now that the day was there, she was scared as hell. They easily could have decided that she was so high risk that it wasn’t worth waiting until she was eighteen. Today could very well be the day she died.  
“Killing a kid would be a bold move just to save face,” Clarke muttered as her hand fell back to the watch on her wrist. Her father had only been gone for a month or so, but she missed him more than she ever thought she could miss someone. Clarke wished she knew who betrayed him—who betrayed her family. More than anything, she’d like to punch them in the face. She had nothing to lose and she knew it.  
She would be eighteen in over nine months, but the leadership of the Ark didn’t care. They floated people all the time and, to them, Clarke was just another prisoner. A high risk one, at that. She was one of the few who knew that the Ark was on its last legs. There would be no oxygen in about ninety days and there was no plan to fix it. But what did she care? She’d be dead in the next year anyways. The whole thing seemed to be the definition of ‘not my problem’.  
Just as these thoughts passed through Clarke’s head, there was a knock on her door. No one ever knocked. Moving to the middle of the room, Clarke awaited what was sure to be her fate on the other side of the door.  
“Prisoner 319,” a voice spoke sternly as the door swung opened.  
Looking the guard up and down, Clarke noted his dark messy hair, the way his uniform didn’t quite fit him right, and the youth in his face. The shock of his appearance distracted Clarke from the objects in his hand.  
“It’s time.”  
“Time for what?”

Bellamy

Bellamy Blake stopped as he heard the fear in the girl’s voice. She wasn’t what he’d expected when they’d told him to prepare the high risk prisoner for transport. He’d expected some hardened criminal who didn’t give a damn about anything, not the girl standing before him.  
Clearing his throat, Bellamy softened his features. There was a moment where he thought about what he would have wanted for Octavia before he went into action.  
Octavia, he thought numbly. He was doing all of this for her. So, whether or not the girl before him deserved what was coming her way, it had to be done. He had to get the job done and claim his prize.  
“We’re leaving.”  
Clarke blinked at the person before her. “Is that your nice way of telling me the rules changed?” Her tone was heavy with sass while Bellamy could only see the fear in her eyes.

Clarke

“Something like that,” he whispered as he turned, closing the door to Clarke’s cell. Setting down the things he’d brought in with him, Clarke watched over his shoulder as he pulled out a syringe and plunged into a small bottle. She’d recognized the label as something from the medical ward when she was training to be a doctor under her mother. It was a sedative.  
“What the hell is this?”  
Looking up at Clarke, Bellamy looked her up and down. “Your ticket out of here.”  
Once Bellamy stood back up to his full height, Clarke took a step back, shaking her head. With every step backwards she took, he took two towards her.  
Before she knew it, Clarke was backed against a wall. It wasn’t the first time she’d been in a similar situation and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last.  
“Look,” Bellamy lifted his hands up in a motion of surrender from a foot back, “I don’t want to hurt you.”  
“Then leave.”

Bellamy

“I can’t do that.” Sighing, Bellamy looked around, trying to see if there was something—anything to help him. That’s when his eyes caught sight of a drawing on the wall. It was of the night sky on Earth—something no one on the Ark had had the privilege of seeing. Not yet anyways. “See that drawing,” he pointed to the one that caught his eye.  
Clarke nodded with a loud gulp.  
“How would you like to see that from a different perspective?”  
“I don’t—”  
“If you want to understand, you’re going to need to stay calm and let me do what I have to do. Got it?”  
He didn’t wait for a response before taking a slow step towards Clarke. After two more, he was close enough for her to begin trying to fight him.  
“Hold still,” he spoke through gritted teeth as he moved the syringe up to her neck, which moved with each of her violent motions.  
Bellamy grunted as the girl hit him square in the eye, knocking him back. She ran towards the door as fast as she could. It wasn’t fast enough, apparently, as he grabbed her waist to pull her back.  
Exchanges like this continued for more time than Bellamy would care to admit before he was finally able to lock Clarke in a still position. As the sedative kicked in, he bent his knees to take her full weight before carrying her across both arms towards the door.

Clarke

“It’s gonna be okay,” the guard whispered as Clarke began to fade in and out of conciseness. “It has to be.”  
Clarke would’ve been ready to stop fighting the increasing pull of exhaustion she felt if she hadn’t heard someone yelling her name. “Clarke!” a voice she knew like the back of her hand shouted. “Clarke.”

Bellamy

Bellamy felt a hand on his shoulder as he neared the door of the transport. “Stop!”  
“Ma’am,” Bellamy began with a note of steal in his tone, “I have orders.”  
“I don’t give a damn about your orders,” Abby Griffin looked into Bellamy’s eyes with a fierce expression. It had been the same one he’d seen in his mother’s eyes before she was floated—one of absolute and complete devotion; the look of a mother who would do anything for her child.  
As Bellamy’s eyes followed the woman, he watched her cup the face of the girl in his arms. “Oh, my baby girl,” she whispered, nearing tears. “I’m so sorry. I love you, Clarke”  
“Mom?” Bellamy could barely hear the girl croak.  
“This is all my fault, Clarke.”  
“It is,” she responded honestly, even in her half-unconscious state. Bellamy fought a laugh.  
“Please forgive me.”  
“I can’t. Because, at the end of the day, you killed dad,” Clarke muttered, struggling to keep her eyes open as she looked her mother in the eyes. “You killed me.”  
With these words, Clarke lost the battle she’d been waging with what she’d been injected with.  
Abby gulped audibly as her eyes shot up to Bellamy’s before she looked to the ground. An embarrassed expression crossed her face as she cleared her throat. Shaking it off, Abby pulled a wristband out of the pouch on her hip. Pressing it gently onto Clarke’s wrist, Abby smoothed her hand over it, as if that were going to change anything.  
“Council member Griffin?” Bellamy asked quietly, taking a shot in the dark.  
“What?” the woman asked back, an irritable tone creeping in.  
“Her name is Clarke?” He his nodded towards the girl in his arms.  
Nodding sheepishly, Abby didn’t meet his eyes.  
“They’re—” Bellamy cleared his throat before lowering his voice, feeling already as if he was being heard by ears other than Abby Griffin’s. “The council is sending me to Earth undercover,” he lied through his teeth. “I can look out for her.”  
A new hope sprang into Abby’s eyes as she looked up. Bellamy noticed the return of that fierce look he’d seen earlier. “Y-you’d do that?”  
Dragging his head up and down in a motion of ‘yes’, Bellamy’s words were more to comfort Abby than anything else. But, if he made sure the girl didn’t end up dead in the next day or two, what could the harm be in that?  
Putting her hand on Bellamy’s arm, Abby gave him a sincere glance. “Thank you.”  
With a small smile, Bellamy continued to walk forward. There was a line of people parallel to where he was going. None of them could enter yet. The high risk prisoner had to be secured. They all knew that, and they all knew that there was only one.  
As Bellamy kept moving, he saw many of their eyes catch on to the girl in his arms. Some had shocked looks—as if they couldn’t believe that they’d send off any child like this. Some gazed at her with recognition. Some dared to sneer with contempt. Bellamy could understand the last one. Clarke was from the Ark’s upper class. She grew up in luxury and comfort while Bellamy had to choose some days between eating himself or letting his little sister or mother eat.  
But, at the end of the day—where they were going—, none of that matter anymore. They were all supposed to be on the same team.  
“Prisoner 319,” Bellamy spoke to the person waiting at the door of the transport.  
“Was there a struggle,” the man with a clipboard asked. Bellamy almost had the nerve to not answer, as it didn’t seem relevant. But, seeing as the man before him was the one allowing him to get out of the hellhole he’d found himself in, that wasn’t the route to go.  
“No.”  
“Perfect,” he checked something off on his clipboard. “The Griffin’s are practically royalty, son. You piss them off, you’re done.”  
Nodding, Bellamy didn’t respond with words as the transport doors slowly slid open, allowing him to enter.  
“Put her somewhere secure. The upper level would probably be better.”  
Taking a careful step over the threshold, Bellamy looked around at the vessel meant to take one hundred souls to the ground. Well, one hundred and one, technically.  
Sighing, Bellamy did as instructed. Walking to the very back, he saw the set of ladders leading up and wondering how the hell this was supposed to work.  
It took a few minutes, but he was finally able to figure something out and, in no time, he was able to hoist Clarke onto the upper level of the transport.  
Moving her into one of the rows with two seats, he set her in the outer most chair. After making sure that everything was buckled securely, Bellamy could hear people filing in slowly.  
A nervous feeling hit Bellamy as he pretended to still be fastening things on Clarke. He didn’t want anyone to recognize him and jeopardize everything he’d worked for just to get was he was.  
Once the first few people made it to their seats in the upper level, Bellamy fell into the seat next to Clarke, following the same steps to buckle himself in. From there, the rest was just waiting.

-/-

Clarke

Clarke was awoken by the jostling of the Ark. Opening her eyes faster than she probably should have, Clarke realized it was not the Ark she was on.  
“What the…” she muttered under her breath with a hand to her head as the transport caught on something.  
“That’ll be the atmosphere.”  
Looking to her right, Clarke’s eyes widened at the sight of the guard who dragged her out of her cell. “What the hell are you doing here?”  
“Would you believe me if I said I was here to protect you, Princess?”  
“Don’t call me that.”  
He laughed, looking down as he did. “This is gonna be fun, isn’t it.”  
“Where are we even going?” Clarke asked, a note of fear creeping into her voice. She’d rather it hadn’t, but it appeared that she didn’t have a choice in the matter.  
“They didn’t tell you?” His question had been meant as a joke but when the girl shook her head ‘no’, confusion found its way to his face. “We’re going to Earth.”  
Eyes widening to saucers, Clarke looked down at the wrist band on her arm before her eyes moved to the surroundings she hadn’t had a chance to take in yet. “So, this is it. They’ve sentenced us all to die but instead of floating us they…what? Thought there would be more gain from sending us to the ground?” As she spoke, Clarke realized how wrong she was. “We’re meant to see if Earth’s viable, aren’t we?”  
“That’s my understanding.”  
“And if we die—”  
“We’re expendable.”  
Letting out a cold laugh, Clarke couldn’t believe it. In all honesty, she’d rather die having been on Earth at least once in her life instead of never leaving the cold abyss of space. “Perfect,” she mumbled.  
“Don’t worry, Princess. With someone looking out for you, I’m sure you’ll be safe.”  
Glaring at the guard, Clarke didn’t know how to respond to him. But that didn’t stop her. “You should watch yourself or I might actually start thinking that my mother cared enough to pay a guard to follow me.”

Bellamy

“W—” Bellamy attempted to begin. He couldn’t find the right words to string together but, luckily, he was saved by a dumbass.  
“Hey!” Clarke yelled at three boys who unbuckled themselves, allowing them to float freely about the transport. “If you don’t want to die, I suggest sitting back down.”  
“The spacewalking bandit strikes again,” a boy about Clarke’s age commented from somewhere in the transport as someone floated distinctly in Clarke and Bellamy’s direction.  
“Looks like your Chancellor floated me after all,” he remarked at the sight of Bellamy’s guard uniform.  
“You’ll probably want to be sitting down before the parachutes kick in. Or don’t. It might just be better to let survival of the fittest decide at this point.”  
Shaking his head, the boy float forwards, toward Clarke. “You’re the traitor who’s been in solitary for a year.”  
“And you’re the dumbass who wasted a month’s supply on oxygen on an illegal spacewalk.”  
“But it was fun,” he spoke the last word as if she’d never heard it before. By the look on her face, she probably hadn’t. Or, at least, not in a while. “I’m Finn by the way.”  
Clarke raised her eyebrows at him as he floated upwards before moving about the room wildly.  
As he did, the transport began to tremble. The parachutes were trying to fight there way out. Aggressively, at that.  
Finn and his two companions were thrown against the nearest walls to their position, causing smoke to fill the room where they hit important equipment.  
Everything shook as Clarke looked over at Bellamy, wondering if he knew what to do. Seeing the same panic in his eyes, both were at a loss.  
For the next five minutes, there was nothing that anyone could do as they plummeted towards Earth faster than anyone could keep up with. It was finally with a great surge of panic that a thud rang out. In the moment, it sounded more like an explosion, but, either way, they knew what it meant: they were on the ground.  
The lights flashed on and off for a moment before going out completely, leaving the emergency lights to kick in seconds later.  
Sounds of restless children and clanking metal were all that could be heard as Clarke and Bellamy ripped off their harnesses. Much to her chagrin, Clarke was slow taking more than two steps.  
“Aw,” Bellamy commented sarcastically. “Is the Princess feeling a little dizzy?”  
“Probably an adverse effect of whatever you drugged me with on the Ark.”  
“Touché,” he winked at her as she pushed passed him.

Clarke

Never has an individual made Clarke want to roll her eyes more.  
Walking with haste over to where she saw three bodies on the floor, Clarke walked up to one of the ones that wasn’t moving.  
“Finn!” she called to the boy who was sitting up, looking between the two others. “Are they breathing?”  
His only response was the slight shaking of his head.  
Clarke stood up as she realized there was nothing she could do to help either of them. “Are you okay, Finn?”  
He repeated the same motion.  
“Fair enough,” she mumbled, sighing as she pushed her hands through the top of her hair that wasn’t a part of the braid that fell over her shoulder.  
Leaving Finn to have a moment, Clarke sighed before making her way over to the ladder, where Bellamy stood. He went down first. After he was at the bottom, Clarke was surprised to see that he waited for her.  
“Alright!” Bellamy yelled as soon as Clarke made it to the bottom. People immediately cleared a path for the two of them as they walked towards the door. As Bellamy’s hand went up to the door’s lever, Clarke had a thought.  
“Stop!” she put a hand on his arm to quickly grab his attention. “The air could be toxic.”  
Smirking at her, Bellamy shook his head. “Then we’re already dead anyways, Princess.”

Bellamy

“Bellamy?” a young voice called from the back as Bellamy raised his hand to the lever again.  
Hesitating for a second, as if he didn’t believe what he was hearing, Bellamy turned slowly. Smiling at the brunette opposite him, Bellamy opened his arms, her cue to push past the others to get to him.  
Wrapping her arms around his neck, the girl looked close to tears. “I never thought I’d see you again.”  
“You know I’d never leave you.” Bellamy pulled back from the girl who had to be at least four years younger than him, only about two younger than herself. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye out for you.”  
Looking Bellamy up and down, a sudden look of confusion struck the girl’s face. “What the hell are you doing in a guard’s uniform, Bell?”  
“A souvenir,” he laughed.  
“Hey!” someone at the back of the ground of kids yelled. “That’s the girl who lived in the floor.”  
“Yeah! And what about it?” she shouted back.

Clarke

That’s when Clarke recognized her. Octavia Blake. Fifteen years old. Clark had heard about her being found on the Ark about a month before she, herself, was locked up. It was a crazy story, but one that Clarke suddenly found a bit more interesting.  
“O,” Bellamy spoke in a soothing voice to his baby sister. “Maybe we should give them something else to remember you by.” Octavia cocked her eyebrow at her brother. “The first person on Earth in a hundred years.”  
Smiling wickedly at one another, Octavia found herself bouncing with excitement as Bellamy pulled the lever.  
With a crashing noise, the transport door hit the ground, allowing the children to see what they’d only read about in textbooks.  
There were trees. Real trees. And birds that flew above them. There was grass and sunlight as far as the eye could see. It was beautiful. It was real. It was Earth.  
Taking a few tentative steps forward, Octavia observed the area, taking in everything. Slowly but surely, she made her way to the edge of the door, looking at the soil before hopping to the ground. It felt soft under her feet but stable. There was nothing artificial about it. She loved it.  
With a deep breath, Octavia threw her hands up, declaring a message for all humanity to hear, “We’re back, bitches!”  
Rounds of cheers went out as the remaining children ran out of the transport. There was absolute chaos. Clarke had never been a fan of the idea of chaos, but, even now, she couldn’t help but smile. Earth was something she’d always viewed as unobtainable, among other things. But now that she was there, they had a chance to survive. Not even just to survive, but to live. That was something she’d only ever dreamed about.  
At some point, Clarke had heard an announcement going off inside the transport. There was something about Mount Weather and how they needed to get there to find supplies. It had been Jaha’s voice—she knew that much—but she had no clue what else they were supposed to do.

Bellamy

“Why so serious, Princess,” the voice of Bellamy Blake came up behind Clarke as she looked between a map she’d found on the transport and the formations that were laid out on the horizon.  
“Because we’re here.” Clarke pointed to a spot on the map before moving her finger to another. “And we’re supposed to be there.” Lifting her hand up, she gestured towards the mountains that were visible. “Behold: Mount Weather; the key to our survival.”  
“We’ll get there eventually,” Bellamy huffed. “Best not to worry about it now.”  
Clarke laughed. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s not worry about how we’re going to eat past the amount of rations we have or find clean water. We probably shouldn’t even think about what’s left down here.”  
“Everything’s dead, Princess.”  
A beat passed as something caught Clarke’s eyes. In the silence, Bellamy turned, getting a look at her in the natural light. “Really?” She broke the silence as she nodded towards an object that was about thirty feet in front of them.  
Looking at it, Bellamy thought it to be a deer. He’d seen them in some old books, but, when it turned it’s one head to reveal another, he wasn’t so sure.  
“Woah,” he muttered taking several steps back.  
“Not everything’s dead, it would appear,” Clarke bit back a giggle at his reaction. “Now,” she called his attention back to pressing matters, “what are we gonna do?”  
“About what?”  
“About everything.”  
Bellamy sighed. “I don’t know,” he spoke honestly for the first time to the young Clarke Griffin.  
“Then let’s figure it out.”  
“Together?” The way he asked the question seemed as if he were appalled at the thought.  
“Why not? They seem to want to listen to you and I outperformed everyone here in Earth skills. I know more about what we’re facing than anyone else. I’d be stupid to think that they’d listen to me alone, given how I grew up. They think that I’ve never had to work for anything. Even if I knew things that could keep us all alive, they would never trust me on my own.”  
Considering this offer for a second, Bellamy tilted his head back and forth, as if he were physically weighing his options. “You really think they’d listen to me?”  
“We can always test the theory,” Clarke suggested before tacking on a counter thought. “Only if that doesn’t cause your ego to blow up. I’d hate to have to knock you down a peg. Again.”  
“Hey, what happened in that cell was not my fault. You threw me off my game.”  
“Yeah, that black eye that’s blooming really says ‘thrown off your game’.”  
The two broke into laughter after this. There was an inexplicable friendship forming between them that neither enjoyed, but they couldn’t walk away from. Something tethered them to one another, and they knew it. It felt almost as if they’d lived this life before only to come back and meet again.  
May we meet again, Clarke thought the words they’d learned growing up. The vague idea that those words weren’t false rang through every fiber of her being as her hand darted to her wristband.  
Looking down at the piece of equipment, Clarke had a question she already knew the answer to. “They’re tracking our every move, aren’t they?”  
“Probably,” Bellamy responded as his eyes found the object in her hand. He wasn’t wearing one, so he had no idea how it was attached to the others or what it was meant for. “What should we do about it?”  
“I bet you think that we should just take them off. Who cares if they think we lived, right? They’re the reason we were left to die.”  
Letting out a small chuckle, Bellamy shook his head. “I have a better idea.”

Clarke

Arching an eyebrow at the young man, Clarke’s curiosity got the better of her as they walked back to the space they were determined to make their camp. Even though not knowing what was running through Bellamy’s head killed her, she didn’t have it in her to ask.  
“Hey!” Bellamy barked the second they were within range. Hopping up onto the set of boxes that had been unloaded from the transport, he held out a hand for Clarke before continuing. “We need to talk!”  
“If we’re going to be here,” Clarke picked up, “we need order. We need to build something from the ground up.”  
“Ironic coming from you,” a tired voice yelled through the clearing. As the person behind the remark walked forward, Clarke could have sworn that she recognized him, but, alas, she couldn’t think of his name. “Seeing as you’ve got a silver spoon shoved so far up your ass, no amount of servants could pull it out.”  
A wave of ‘Oh’s went through the crowd as Clarke jumped off the boxes. Walking right up to the young man, Clarke held no fear as she stared him down. Glancing at the patch on his jacket for a second, Clarke gave him a sly smile. “Murphy, is it? You see, there are no silver spoons here. I was sent down to Earth—damned to die—the same as all of you. So before you start preaching to me about how there’s nothing I can do for you expect resolve all of the vendettas you have against the same people who turned their backs on me, I suggest you think about what will happen tonight. And tomorrow. And every day after that.”  
Taking a step back, Clarke looked at the people before her. The oldest was closer to seventeen and eleven months while the youngest was probably somewhere around six or seven. “There are a lot of things that I learned while on the Ark that could probably save our lives. If you let me, I could help us survive. Both of us can.” Clarke spoke her final words on the top of their makeshift platform.  
“What are you proposing?” Finn spoke up, his arms crossed over his chest.  
“Government,” Bellamy responded with force. “Like the Princess said, we need order. The only way we’re going to get that is if we have someone to give us order.”  
“But this isn’t the Ark,” Clarke added to what Bellamy was saying. “No Chancellors, no class system. We all breathe the same air and we’re going to live like it.”  
Continuing a pattern of going back and forth as they explained, it was Bellamy’s turn to explain. “The first thing we need to do is establish rules—”  
“To hell with rules,” Murphy shouted, causing a portion of the crowd to cry out in agreement.  
“No,” Bellamy responded with force. “None of this ‘no rules, free reign’ bullshit. We’re all gonna make a set of rules and we will follow them.”  
“What happens if we break them?” a boy piped up shyly.  
“You die.”  
There was a round of gasps throughout the crowd at Bellamy’s words. Clarke hit his arm hard enough to get an audible response.  
“No!” She shook her head. “If we start doing that, then we’re no better than the Ark.”  
“Then what do you propose, Princess,” Bellamy leaned over to whisper in her ear. “In history, that’s how rulers solidified their reign.”  
“History is made to not be repeated. When people do it, they just screw up all over again.” Clearing her throat, Clarke geared up to address the crowd once more. “If you break the rules, we’ll banish you from the camp. Different infractions will cause lengths of punishments to differ. If the crime is severe enough, permanent punishment will be considered, as will the death penalty.” Turning her head to see Bellamy’s response, she was pleased to see his nod.  
“Okay,” Murphy drew out the word. “And who will decide if we’ve broken a rule?”  
“Us.” Bellamy looked ready to deck Murphy. “Me and the Princess. Anyone have a problem with that?”  
“Uh, yeah. I do.” Murphy stepped forward to where everyone could see him. He winked at a girl in the front row as he turned around. “In no world am I letting myself be governed by miss prissy the bitchy!”  
At these words, Bellamy stepped off the platform before turning Murphy around and grabbing him by his jacket. Speaking so low that no one could hear him, Bellamy wasn’t having this. “Let me make something clear, Murphy,” Bellamy spit out the boy’s name as if it had a bad taste. “You don’t get a choice. And now Clarke may have something else to say about it, but one more word from you, and I’ll shoot you myself.”  
“Boys!” Clarke followed Bellamy, shoving Murphy out of his hands so that the two were separated. “We’re not doing this. We don’t have the resources and we don’t have the time to gang up on each other.”  
Murphy, looking Clarke up and down for a moment, eventually found it in himself to spit at her feet.  
“Bellamy.” Clarke’s whisper was quiet as she had to restrain the boy. “He’s not worth it. He just wants a rise out of you.”  
Bellamy’s eyes were unmoving at this—they were still locked with Murphy’s.  
“Hey,” Clarke continued. When that didn’t work, she grabbed his jaw, turning it to face her and his entire head with it. The second his eyes met Clarke’s, part of the anger in him resolved itself, allowing him to take a deep breath. “Unless you want a second black eye to match the other one, you will get it together.”  
Nodding with a tight throat, Bellamy took a step backwards towards the platform of boxes.  
Clarke closed her eyes for a minute. Sighing, she gathered the courage to turn around. “That’s our proposal. If you’re so against it, that’s fine. We’ll deal with that. But just know that you being uncomfortable,” Clarke threw a pointed glance in Murphy’s direction, “and wanting to challenge anyone here is something that you are staking everyone’s lives on. Here on Earth, if we make a mistake, we could all die. That’s why we need to work together. Maybe then we all have a chance of seeing our families again. Or seeing our friends. Or whoever else we have waiting for us on the Ark. But, if we do it right, we could see them here.”  
Seeing the chuckle that was forming on Murphy’s lips, Clarke had a guess why. She also had something that might appeal to him. “Or maybe you aren’t concerned with seeing loved one’s again. Maybe you don’t have any to see and maybe there’s a reason. If that’s the case, I formally invite you to join a committee.”  
“A committee?” Murphy sneered.  
“The Justice Committee,” Clarke replied. “By the rules of what we’re building here, the leadership of the Ark, even if it made it’s way to Earth, is void. But certain people up there, won’t agree. So, when they get to Earth, our Justice Committee will greet them with the same cells that we saw. How does that sound?”  
Murphy’s scowl turned to one of a near smirk as a few cheers went through the crowd.  
“Right then, so,” Bellamy added on, “who’s with us?”  
“I think it’s a great idea,” Octavia was the first to speak up.  
Finn laughed loud enough for everyone to hear, drawing Clarke’s attention away from her ex-best friend. “The Rebel and the Princess,” he said as he carefully placed his hands in his pockets. “It would definitely throw the Ark off.”  
People went around, shouting their agreement. Those who disagreed didn’t say it, but it showed in their faces.  
“I think the Ark could use a taste of their own medicine,” Murphy spoke after the clearing went silent. “What will their punishment be?”  
“We don’t know yet,” Bellamy answered. “But it’ll fit the crime and you can be sure of that.”  
“And the Justice Committee will help to decide.” Clarke stepped forward, looking to see a crack in Murphy where he would side with them. “Do we have a deal?”  
That’s what this was. A deal. If Clarke and Bellamy got Murphy and his delinquents to behave, everyone else would fall in line. So this was a deal—a bargain—and it had to work.  
Nodding once in an almost solemn fashion, Murphy tilted his head up, not allowing a shadow to be cast over it. “Why not.”  
“Perfect.”  
Bellamy smiled devilishly. “First things first: the wristbands. We’re not taking them off.”  
Murmurs went through the clearing as people turned to those nearest them.  
“Hey! Listen up!” he attempted to regain their attention. “Maybe I should rephrase; we’re gonna leave some intact. Most of them will come off, but we’ll leave enough where they think that it’s survivable down here.”  
Clarke nodded. “They most definitely won’t think it’s easy—which will, with any luck, scare the hell out of them—but they’ll know that more loss of human life isn’t necessary.”  
“In the next week, we’ll settle how we’re going to do that.”  
“But, for now, we need shelter and to find food and water.” Giving this a second to sink in, Clarke thought about all of the different things she could say—the different routes she could go with this. There were almost too many. “There will be an expedition today. A small group of us will go to Mount Weather. If anyone wants to volunteer, come find me later.”  
“As for the rest of us, we’re going to set up the tents and unpack. By the time the expedition is back, this will be a real camp.”  
There were more hoops and hollers as Bellamy spoke these words. They were all excited to be off the Ark, to be away from all of the pain and the isolating feeling of space. It was something special to be on Earth and they wanted to reflect that in the pride they put into making their camp the best it could be.  
That afternoon, four people approached Clarke. All of them wished to volunteer to go on the expedition. As Clarke looked at all of them, she felt something tug at her. Each of them seemed familiar, but she couldn’t explain how.  
“I-is your name Jordan, by chance?” Clarke asked as a rather scrawny boy came up to her.  
He shook his head. “I’m Monty. However—”  
“I’m Jordan,” the kid beside him finished his sentence. “Jasper Jordan.”  
“Ah,” Clarke nodded, not knowing where that question came from.  
“So,” a vivacious Octavia followed by Finn pushed past Jasper and Monty, “when do we leave?”  
At that moment, Bellamy seemingly appeared from nowhere behind Clarke. “Hell no.”  
“But Bell—”  
“I said no.”  
Clarke pointedly looked at Bellamy before dropping her voice to a whisper. “If she stays here, how do you know that she won’t just sneak off when you’re not looking? You kind of have your hands full here,” she rationalized. “If she wants to go, let her go. I’ll keep an eye out.”  
Bellamy glared at Clarke, considering her for a moment. Sighing, her ran a hand through his hair. “Fine.” Looking up to his little sister, he pointed a stern finger at her. “Behave.”  
“Bell, I’m fifteen. Not five.”  
“Then prove it, little O.”  
She nodded, wanting him to know that she understood the gravity of the situation.  
The two embraced in a small hug before Bellamy released her. Nodding to Clarke, he took his leave to wrangle the others.  
“Who’s ready for an adventure?” Clarke asked upon Bellamy’s sudden departure.  
The group left within thirty minutes, carrying enough supplies to last them the day. That was how long it was estimated for them to get to Mount Weather. A day. Clarke could handle the uncertainties for a day. She could handle not knowing if they were going to eat or what building a camp on Earth would look like. But only for a day.  
As it turned out, the trip was fun. There was swimming involved, something none of them had done before for obvious reasons, but they had the time of their lives. Everything seemed to be going alright until they were so close to Mount Weather, they could almost taste it.  
“Woohoo!” Jasper yelled as he swung over the last obstacle between them and Mount Weather. Rather than cross it by foot and risk whatever radiated beast could be lying in wait, they decided to test fate and swing across. Not only was it probably safer, but it seemed to be the more fun option.  
“You’re up, Clarke,” Finn said, waggling his eyebrows in a playful manner.  
Laughing at his stupidness, she shook her head as she gripped the vine that Finn grabbed off the tree behind them.  
“Yes! Go Clarke!” Jasper called, still high on the adrenaline rush. “Woohoo! Yeah!”  
Clarke took a steadying breath as she prepared to jump.  
“Guys!” Jasper held a sign over his head. Written in blocking lettering were the words ‘Mount Weather’. “We did i—!”  
Jasper’s words were cut off by the sight of a large spear plunging into his chest.  
“No!” Monty yelled as Octavia shouted, “Jasper!”  
“Get down.” Finn practically had to yank Clarke down.  
“We’re not alone.” Clarke’s words seemed to point out the obvious, but also summed up everyone’s thoughts in three words.  
Only after ten minutes was it deemed safe to move.  
“If they wanted to kill us all, they would’ve attacked us by now,” Clarke said as she stood up, dusting the dirt off of her.  
“What the hell are you doing?” Finn whisper yelled.  
“If we wait any longer, Jasper will die.”  
Jumping from rock to rock without looking back, Clarke made it to the other side of the river. Putting her hand to his wrist, Clarke looked up to the sky, counting in her head.  
“He’s alive!” she shouted to the others, who watched in awe from the other side of the river.  
Picking up one of his arms, Clarke carried as much of his weight as she could. “Okay, Jasper, I need you to stay with me. Talk to me.”  
Jasper wasn’t able to get words out until they’d made it into the water. “T-t-thank-k y-you,” he stammered out. “T-thank you f-for not-t leav-ving m-me.”  
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said through gritted teeth. Clarke was dragging him through the watch until Finn, Monty, and Octavia were able to help pull him up on the other side.  
“Note to self,” Finn spoke in a declaratory fashion, “the Princess is a badass.”  
“We need to get him back to camp. Now,” Clarke sent a pointed glare in everyone’s direction. This expression was less out of frustration and more out of fear for Jasper.  
The five began trudging through the forest with Finn in the lead until he held up a hand.  
“Stop,” he whispered. “I think I hear something.”  
Not a second after these words left his mouth did a sea of arrows fly through the air, missing all five of their marks, so it seemed.  
With not a moment to lose, all of them began running as fast as they could—even with Clarke and Monty shouldering Jasper’s weight. They seemed to be running for at least an hour before feeling safe enough to slow down. That’s when they ran straight into camp.  
It looked different than before. The tents were all set up and stations seemed to be forming. But none of them had time to notice.  
“What the—” Murphy saw them first. Asking too many questions without speaking a single one, he watched as Clarke and Monty, trailed quickly by Finn and Octavia, rushed into the transport—which was now the camp’s headquarters, so to speak.  
“What are just sitting around for?” Finn yelled at him as he caught Murphy staring. “Find Bellamy!”  
Murphy didn’t waste a second. Running around the camp like a madman, it was a few minutes before he found Bellamy.  
“B-bellamy.” Murphy’s hands found his knees as he took deep breaths. “T-t-t—”  
“Spit it out, Murphy.”  
“The expedition. Someone got hurt.”  
With the word ‘hurt’, it was Bellamy’s turn to take off. As frantic as he was, no one was moving as fast as Clarke.  
“We need somewhere to put him down,” Clarke said to no one in particular.  
Moving some things around, Finn and Octavia were able to find enough medical-ish supplies to get Clarke things she hadn’t asked for yet as well as a small table-like structure. If you didn’t look for too long, the scene almost resembled the Ark’s med bay.  
Setting him down as gently as possible, Monty was quick to step away.  
“Jasper!” Monty spoke up as the boy’s eyes seemed to be rolling into the back of his head.  
“I’m here,” he mumbled.  
Clarke was sifting through the rather extensive set of medical supplies in a bag Octavia had found. Looking at it all, Clarke figured that she had every tool she needed. Except for the knowledge to safe Jasper, that is. But who was she to shy away from a challenge?  
“Jasper, can you hear me?” Clarke asked as she put on the set of rubber medical gloves that she found in the bag.  
He nodded slowly, looking tired as ever as Clarke began cutting around the wound.  
“This is going to probably hurt, but I need you to stay with me, okay?”  
Seeing that Jasper nodded again, Clarke did a similar motion as she put too firm hands on the spear.  
“What are you gonna do?” Monty asked, stopping Clarke momentarily, as if he had a better idea.  
“I’m gonna save his life.” With these words, Clarke pulled the spear from Jasper’s chest in a solid motion.  
The scream that resulted was practically one of bloody murder. To be fair, that seemed to be the air of the situation.  
Working fast, Clarke shined a light into the wound to check for any major damage or anything left behind.  
“Talk to me, Jasper.” Clarke’s voice shook as she spoke. “Um…what did you get arrest for? Why are you here?”  
Jasper let out a dull laugh as he looked over at Monty. “We stole some herbs from agriculture.”  
Monty chuckled at the memory. “We stole weed.”  
“A story for the ages.” Jasper extended out his fist to Monty, who matched the motion to form a fist bump.  
Clarke smiled at the interaction, being too nervous to laugh as she feared screwing up what she was doing. There were scraps from the tip of the spear left in Jasper. Before she could sew him up, Clarke had to get them out.  
Her hands hadn’t ever moved as fast as they did then. In total, there ended up being fourteen pieces in total, each smaller than the last, it seemed.  
The conversation continued while Clarke worked to ensure that Jasper stayed awake. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until Bellamy walked in.  
“What happened?” he shouted as he entered the room. Surveying the scene, he breathed a sigh of relief. Octavia wasn’t the one who’d been hurt. However, there was still much to worry about. “Is everyone alright?”  
“Doin’ just fine, bruv. How’re you?” Jasper slurred before his eyes closed.  
“Clarke!” Panic crept into Octavia’s voice.  
“Um.” Clarke looked down at the boy who was paling by the second. He had already been losing a lot of blood, but Clarke had no idea how much. Not until now, anyways.  
“Clarke, do something!” Monty yelled.  
Putting her ear over his mouth, Clarke heard nothing. Standing up straight, Clarke’s eyes darted to the medical bag at the end of the table before her body followed in a similar motion.  
Reaching her hands in, they came back with a box containing a piece of machinery and two metal paddles.  
Quickly attaching the appropriate things to his chest, Clarke started the machine.  
“What is that?”  
“A defibrillator. Now back the hell up.” Clarke probably shouldn’t have responded to Monty’s question with such harshness, but there was no time to think otherwise. “Clear!”  
There was no reaction from Jasper with exception of his chest bouncing up.  
Firing up the machine again, Clarke repeated this four or five times before changing methods. Forcing open Jasper’s mouth, Clarke pushed air into his lungs. After repeating this, Clarke used the defibrillator one more time.  
With the longest breath in the history of everything, Jasper was breathing again. “We’re back, baby,” he said under his breath as his heart settled into a rhythm.  
Knowing she didn’t have a moment to spare, Clarke quickly finished up his stitching and dressed the wound.  
Standing back, Clarke observed her work with a nod. “That should do it.”  
“Does that mean I’m dead, doc?”  
Clarke chuckled. “It means you’re lucky.”  
“Thanks,” he smiled in a tired fashion.  
“No problem. Now get some rest and, with any luck, you’ll be better in no time.”  
Taking a deep breath, Clarke stepped away. As she did she felt an exhaustion ignite in her. With the attempt to put a hand to her head, she finally realized why. Pulling the skin over on her right arm, Clarke saw what seemed to be the tip of an arrow.  
“You alright, Princess?” Bellamy asked at Clarke’s expression.  
“I’m fine,” she muttered as she tried to assess the injury.  
“No, you’re not,” Octavia said as she approached Clarke. “You’re bleeding.”  
Clarke let her arm fall back to a resting position before trying to wave the girl away. “I’ll be fine.”  
“O?” Bellamy caught his sister’s attention. “Can you take Monty and Finn out with the others?”  
“Aye, aye captain,” Octavia said with a smirk before leading the boys out of the dropship.  
“You didn’t have to do that.” Clarke’s words were muffled as she walked back to the medical bag to get what she needed to fix herself up.  
“But I did. And isn’t that what truly matters.”  
Rolling her eyes in a comedic way, Clarke headed over to one of the last remaining seats of the original transport. It seemed that some people had taken out about ninety percent of them to create more space for whatever the dropship would eventually be used for.  
Falling into the chair, Clarke was surprise when Bellamy fell into the one right next to her.  
“Here, allow me,” he smirked.  
“Do you even know what I was going to do?”  
“No,” he said matter-of-factly. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t figure it out.”  
“Loving that logic.”  
“Thanks.” This word came as Bellamy pulled the arrow’s tip from Clarke’s arm.  
She didn’t scream although she would’ve liked to. Instead, she gritted her teeth and bared the pain.  
“See. I figured out how to shut you up.”  
Laughing to ease the urge of crying, Clarke slammed her eyes shut. “Wow. Is that really the best you got?”  
“No, but we have time for me to come up with better.”  
“Ah.”  
The two laughed together as Bellamy began stitching up her arm.  
Clarke didn’t know why, but she missed this feeling. It wasn’t the feeling of having a friend to talk to, but of talking to this particular person. She missed Bellamy. That’s when a pang of guilt hit her. She had the slightest of clues as to why, but she didn’t want to find out. All she wanted was to continue whatever they had and see where it led.  
“So,” Clarke spoke into the silence as Bellamy dressed the wound, “you never answered my question.”  
“And what was that?”  
“Did my mom send you? To protect me?”

Bellamy

Bellamy paused for a second. Unintentionally, he looked up into her waiting eyes. Gazing into them, he felt that he should tell her the truth. He had no reason to be honest with her. Hell, he had no reason to trust her. But he did, for some reason.  
“No,” Bellamy shook his head, his eyes still not leaving hers. “She didn’t send me.”  
Clarke nodded before casting her gaze downward.  
“But she did ask me to protect you.”  
Within a second, Clarke’s eyes were back to his. He did know why but in the second that they’d been gone, he almost missed them.  
Sighing, Bellamy stood up to put the medical supplies away against one of the far walls. He really didn’t need this. Much less right now, given the circumstances.  
“I came on the dropship as a stowaway.” Bellamy spoke to no one in particular even though there was only one person in the room. However, his words had no direction. He simply spoke his thoughts. “They told me that if I successfully got prisoner 319 to the transport, that was my ticket to follow Octavia.”  
Bellamy turned to face Clarke as he walked back to her. “I thought it was the funniest thing that they were afraid of a teenage girl. Until, that is, I saw what they were afraid,” he pointed to his eye, causing Clarke to give a small laugh. For a moment, Bellamy wanted to tell Clarke the rest. He wanted to tell her how her mom came up to him and how he promised to protect her. He really wanted to. But he couldn’t. It was probably better that she didn’t know. For what, he had no idea. But it seemed like the better option.  
“You seem like a good big brother,” Clarke said out of nowhere. She had no idea why, but the words just flowed out of her. “To come all this way for her, that says a lot.”  
“Only good things, I hope.”  
Clarke laughed. “Definitely.”  
“Uh,” Bellamy said in the only slightly awkward silence that followed. “We figured out the wristband situation.”  
“Really?”  
“Yep,” he nodded. “Half on, half off. They’ll think that there’s enough of us to warrant sending down the rest while appeasing the kids who feel wronged by the Ark.”  
“Sounds solid.”  
“I thought so.” Looking around the room absentmindedly, Bellamy eventually found his way to Clarke’s wristband. “We kinda thought that you’d want to leave yours on. Seeing as your mom—”  
“Oh yeah. She’d bring the entire Ark down on my behalf.”  
Smirking at the sarcasm in her voice, Bellamy finally knew that they’d be okay friends in that moment—maybe not best friends or even good friends but they’d be okay together. “Let’s hope she brings Jaha. There’s a couple kids here who’d love to take a shot at him.”  
The two fell into laughter once more. There were more exchanges like this as the days went on. He would say something funny, she’d reply with sarcasm and/or call him an idiot, and then they’d laugh it off until the next encounter.  
Weeks passed like this. During that time period, they led the one hundred kids sent to Earth to become a small society. They did everything together and found joy in working with one another.  
“’Morning, Princess,” Bellamy crooned the nickname as he approached the table Clarke was leaned over in her tent.

Clarke

Rolling her eyes, Clarke almost laughed. She’d given up trying to stop him from calling her that. It wasn’t like anyone else at camp had picked it up. So, in her mind, where was the problem?  
“Bellamy,” she responded absentmindedly as she continued pouring over what Bellamy could now see were maps.  
“Whatcha lookin’ for?”  
“Well, we’re still running low on certain supplies and I don’t know how much longer we can last. Especially if winter is still as bad as the records on the Ark said. There’s a bunker that should be right…,” Clarke paused as her finger ran over the page before stopping, “here. I don’t know how much would be there but—”  
“It’s always worth a shot in we can avoid panic.”  
“Exactly.”  
Looking over the maps one last time, Bellamy sighed. “So, when do we leave?”  
“Excuse me?”  
“You clearly planned on going and there’s no way I’m letting you go by yourself.”  
Clarke shook her head as she laughed. “I can handle myself.” Moving to leave the room, he stepped straight into her path.  
“Oh, I know you can, Princess. That’s not why I’m going.”  
“And why is that, then?”  
Bellamy looked down but didn’t respond. His hesitation allowed certain things to click in Clarke’s mind.  
“Ha!” she let out a single note. “You’re worried about me.”  
“No. No, I never said that.”  
“Please. Your face says it all.”  
In favor of ignoring the exchange that had just taken place, Bellamy was only focusing on what was to come. “Are we going or not?”  
“Fine,” Clarke spoke through a laugh that was still caught in her throat. “You can come. We can leave now and maybe we’ll be back by sundown.”  
“So this is just a daytrip?” he asked as he held the tent’s makeshift door open for her to duck under.  
“Yep. Just a daytrip.”  
“Sounds fun.”  
“It could be.” The words came from Clarke as they walked through the camp’s entrance. “You know, if we don’t die.”  
Bellamy bumped her shoulder as the two walked into the unknown. It wasn’t any different then the known to them. As long as they faced it together, everything would be fine. Bellamy believed that as much as Clarke did, even though neither would ever vocalize it. But, despite the stubbornness they both had, they’d still make it—together.  
“Hey!” Clarke shouted a few hours later. They were in the middle of no where looking for what was meant to be a depot or bunker of sorts. All they’d found thus far was grass and a whole lot of nothing. That is, until Clarke made a discovery. “I think I found a door!”  
Within moments, Bellamy was standing over Clarke’s shoulder as she attempted to pry open the contraption.  
“It might be rust shut.”  
“Watch your foot.” Bellamy swung back an axe that he’d found as he searched his side of the field they were in. The mechanism meant to hold the door closed broke in two and he dropped to his knees to held Clarke.  
It took a minute, but the two eventually got the rust-riddled door to open.  
“Woah,” Clarke muttered as walked down the steps into what appeared to be a large underground facility. She had no idea how deep it went or how big it was. The sheer fact alone that it was there seemed to grant her hope that there would be supplies or something to help them.  
Bellamy and Clarke didn’t split up this time as they worked their way through the halls of the depot.  
“So much for living down here,” Clarke remarked as she waved her flashlight around, looking at all of the damage to the walls and floor.  
Digging through some barrels, Bellamy huffed as he found nothing. “It looks like everything was destroyed or handed out during the last of the bombs.” Letting his frustration get the better of him for a moment, Bellamy kicked the nearest thing in front of him—it was a metal barrel with nothing but dirty water in it. Or so he’d thought.  
With the sound of his foot hitting the metal, he’d heard something move inside of it that caused a small clank.  
“What the—” he whispered as he looked from the barrel to Clarke. Curious, Bellamy tipped the barrel over. “No way.”  
His anger had immediately turned to excitement as he saw what had come out with the water: guns.  
As he picked one of them up, Clarke could see the glow in his face. She wasn’t too sure she liked it.  
“Ever held a gun, Princess.”  
She shook her head in lieu of a verbal response.

Bellamy

Grinning ear to ear, Bellamy set the gun down before rushing around the space they were in. After a moment or two, Bellamy had strung up a red piece of cloth with an ‘X’ on it, as well as strategically placing lights throughout the room to illuminate the space.  
Picking the weapon back up, he turned it around in Clarke’s direction, holding it out to her.  
“Ready to be a badass, Princess?” His smirk brought out little reaction from her this time.  
“Look. I’m not going to fight you on bringing guns back to camp. I know we need them, but don’t expect me to like it.”  
“And that’s fine. But you need to learn how to do this.”  
Clarke nodded as she took the gun that was still extended in her direction.  
“So I just hold it to my shoulder?”  
“Yeah, a little higher.” With his words, Bellamy placed a hand on her back to help steady her. They stood like that for a moment, neither moving nor speaking. “Yeah, uh, that’s good. Watch and learn?”  
“Sure.” Nodding, Clarke moved back behind Bellamy, pretending that that didn’t just happen.  
Squaring up to the target, Bellamy lined up the crosshairs of his gun to the ‘X’ before pulling the trigger. Nothing happened.  
“I’m I supposed to be seeing something or does this fall under watching and learning.”  
“Shut up,” he responded, trying his best not to laugh.  
After repeating the process over and over with nothing happening, Bellamy gave up. “Mine are duds. Try yours.”  
Clarke walked to where Bellamy stood before turning to face the target. Doing as she’d seen him do, she put the end to her shoulder and got read to fire.  
“Wait,” Bellamy stopped her to check her form. 

Clarke

Clarke’s breath caught in her throat as Bellamy put his arms around her to find where her hands held the gun. With his head merely centimeters from hers, she could feel her heart beating out of her chest. She didn’t know why—there was no proper explanation for it. He’d been kind to her. Sure. And maybe there was a little bit of flirtation between them but…no. Clarke didn’t want to attempt where that line of thinking led.  
Bellamy began speaking again as what was meant to be their lesson continued. “You have to point it just above what your aiming for and you’ll hit your target every time.” His low whisper eventually ended, but he didn’t move. For a moment, he didn’t think he could. He was drawn to Clarke, that much he knew. But the rest…it wasn’t anything he could convince himself wasn’t fate.  
Slowly but surely, he moved back to allow her to take the shot.  
“Give a try.”  
Without hesitation, Clarke squeezed the trigger, letting the shot ring out before it hit the center of the ‘X’.  
“How was that?” she asked, forcing herself to face him.  
“Uh, perfect.” He stumbled on his words. “It was…perfect.”  
Clarke nodded as she set the gun on the ground before taking two steps towards Bellamy. They were slow steps, but she made herself take them, nonetheless.  
“Thanks for the lesson.”  
Bellamy stepped closer to her, almost closing the space. “It was no problem.”  
Looking from his eyes to the boots on his feet that he’d no doubt stolen from a guard on the Ark, Clarke glance up and down Bellamy, taking him in.  
“What are we doing?” Clarke whispered as they became closer.  
“I’m following your lead, Princess.”  
“And if I’m wrong?”  
“Then we’ll be wrong together.”  
“Together,” she repeated the word before placing a hand on Bellamy’s chest. She could feel his heart beating in time with her own. As she felt the rhythmic thumps, a phrase came back to her.  
‘The head and the heart,’ she remembered the words, as if they’d come to her in a dream.  
In the silence, Bellamy’s hands came up to Clarke’s neck, tilting her head back ever so gently. “Do you want this?” he asked quietly.  
Clarke responded with action. Moving the hand that had been on Bellamy’s chest to behind his neck, Clarke practically pulled herself up to his lips. Their mouths crashed into one another’s as they stood in a passionate embrace. Time ticked away but none of it mattered as they were entangled. All that mattered was them being together until time stopped ticking and nothing was left except the memory of them.  
It was that memory of the daytrip that stayed with Clarke until the end. At every turn, she felt that she’d been there before. But, this time, she wasn’t alone. Bellamy was there too. Which is why, in the end, he was still beside her. Even as they stood on the beach in Bardo, the one’s they’d cared for either long gone or transcended.  
With the first memory they’d shared along with the hundreds of others they’d made along the way, Clarke stared at the open water. No matter how deep it was, she’d doubt that it could’ve held what she felt for Bellamy or the fondness she had for each and every single one of those memories.  
“So,” Bellamy’s voice came from behind her as he carefully wrapped his arms around her waist, “what are we doing tomorrow?”  
Letting out a small laugh, Clarke shook her head. “I hear we made ‘saving the world’ an irrelevant job.”  
“That was all you, Princess.”  
“Hmm,” she said skeptically as she turned herself around in his arms. “I think it was us. All of us.”  
“And who would I be to disagree with you.” His words made Clarke almost giggle. The love that he looked at her with still gave her butterflies, even after all this time. They were worlds away from where they’d started and years had passed since they were the kids who decided to play ‘grown up’s on Earth, but they’d made it.  
Although neither had made the conjecture out loud, they’d guessed that they needed each other. Whether they needed to hate one another or they needed to love one another or to kill one another, they had no clue. They knew that, whether or not they pointed it out, their fates were intertwined. And, through everything, they survived because they had each other. In that, they had a best friend, a lover, and someone to carry the weight of the world with them. Any pain and suffering, they helped to bare so that the other might not have to; that was their destiny and one that they fulfilled with pride.  
The head and the heart, they became known to one another. Logic and emotion, two essentials of life, a yin and yang in their own way. That’s what Bellamy and Clarke were: night and day, in which each hold their own purpose, but you cannot know one without the other.  
They were night and day—different but the same. And as necessary to one another as the air they breathe.


End file.
